


a game that you play

by hayleyisbored



Series: a game that you play [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Banter, Bond Sees Right Through Him, Flirting, Fluff, Humour, M/M, Post-Skyfall, Q Has a Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 03:25:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17614520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hayleyisbored/pseuds/hayleyisbored
Summary: "It's much more soothing constructing highly combustible prototypes than when I'm talking to bullish Double Oh agents who can never follow simple instructions."





	a game that you play

"Get me Q. _Now_."

So were the words which had unceremoniously summoned Q from his lab to the main hub of action. Q, disgruntled and still dressed in his white lab coat, sweeps by to see several computer monitors swiftly switching off of Solitaire to important looking things like articles and maps and news of recent advancements in tech. When he settles down in front of his own station, he finds 007 brooding impatiently on the security camera feed which Q Branch is observing him from.

Q heaves a sigh, locating his headset on his appallingly messy desk and jams it onto his head without further ado.

"Ah, 007." Q begins cordially as he takes his seat, swallowing down the last mouthful of cold tea from his long forgotten mug. He decides to take it as a bad omen of things to come. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your unexpected company this evening?"

"Good," Bond says gruffly, pushing off from the wall he'd been slouching against. His grace still astonishes Q sometimes, still sends his thoughts scarpering away into the darkest corners of his mind until all he can think upon are warm ocean eyes and a self-assured smirk, expensive cologne smothering all of his wits. "I need your assistance."

"And pray tell me, 007, why is my employee not at her station guiding you through this relatively simple mission but crying in the loo instead? This was supposed to be excellent experience for her in working alongside field agents, you know."

"Maybe I missed the sound of your voice."

Q softly clucks his tongue at the seductive tone that rolls naturally from the agent's lips, grimacing when Bond acknowledges his disapproval with a grin at the camera. "I hope you didn't pull me away from my work just to _flirt_ because I will hand you back over to - "

"If only," Bond replies, momentarily pausing to expertly dispatch of an armed guard. The sound of his struggle whispers through the headset, strained breath as clear and intimate as if he's murmuring right into the shell of Q's ear himself. Q shakes himself from a daze; crushes have never been convenient for him, especially when they're on a certain Double Oh agent who has an extensive and well documented history of being a heartbreaker. He orders himself to get a grip. "I fear things have taken a rather complicated turn, actually. Thought perhaps this called for your loving touch."

"And what is so urgent that you require the personal help of your Quartermaster?"

"They anticipated me; the building is rigged to explode. There's a bomb in here somewhere, I'm having trouble locating it. I should also mention that although I've some experience with explosives, I'm not usually the one deactivating them."

Q has already pulled up CCTV footage and is scanning hours flitting by in seconds even as Bond speaks. He snaps his fingers at the nearest stations and orders them to do the same. "Abominably rude of them to disturb my downtime like this - "

"I thought you were working?"

"I am - was. I treat my lab work as a time for relaxation and quiet contemplation," Q says tartly, now searching through blueprints of the building, eyes flitting back to 007's lean, black-clad figure prowling down the corridor. "It's much more soothing constructing highly combustible prototypes than when I'm talking to bullish Double Oh agents who can never follow simple instructions - left turn here, by the way. I said left, Bond."

"I heard you."

"And besides, it would be remiss of me to let you get away with ruining poor Jessica's evening." Q reprimands, lowering his voice as the young woman returns to her desk, puffy eyed and dejected. "You didn't have to be so hard on her, I thought she was doing a rather splendid job of putting up with you before you started yelling."

"Please pass on my apologies." 007 says smoothly, not sounding too sorry at all. "In my defence, I'm quite pressed for time."

"Only your presence can turn something as straightforward as neutralising a drug mule operation into a bloody bomb threat. By all accounts, you're not even supposed to be there but you _did_ insist on taking any mission you could get."

"What can I say? I like to see the world. Surprisingly, war criminals are a little thin on the ground at the moment. We all need our hobbies."

"Yes, well." Q shrugs, feeling foolish when he realises that Bond can't see him do that. Bond's lazy banter suggests more of chatting about the tribulations of a regular nine to five and not the life or death situation he's currently in. "Trouble seems to follow you around like a besotted pooch. Stop there - see that vent? Yes, that one. It's in there, you'll need - "

"Already on it, Q." Bond says calmly, pulling out a bottle of clear hand-gel and applying it to the edges of the vent cover with quick precision.

Even through the grainy footage, Q can see the vent begin to smoke as the metal erodes. Q suppresses his pride for now; the hand-gel is his own creation, capable of dissolving any material in a matter of seconds. It had delighted Bond too upon its initial unveiling but then, 007 always bought into the more gimmicky gadgets. 003, for example, had been less than enthused. The bottle is specially designed to hold the gel without melting away into a scalding plastic puddle; Q has had to stress to multiple agents that they should make a note of the Q stamped lid and keep it separate from their other toiletries on the off chance that they confuse it with the real thing. It would be an embarrassing slip up for the agent _and_ for Q, to say the least.

"Besotted pooch, you say?" Bond grunts as he yanks the cover from the vent, carefully installing it against the wall. "I suppose that's a fair assessment. If I had to guess on your preference, you'd strike me as a cat person."

"Maybe I am, you'll never know. I don't care to give you enough to go on for you to be certain of that claim. I try to keep as much from you as possible, 007. I shudder to think what you would do with the details of my life."

"Yes, your file is under lock and key, so to speak. I'd have to be - well, _you_ to get into it."

"Rightly so."

Q watches Bond slowly pull out the bomb - from his viewpoint it's a homemade affair, strictly hodgepodge and lacking any sophistication. Q feels he can do much better with what he has lying around at home but he's not about to underestimate its capability to damage - and squints at the monitor, shoving his slipping glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose.

"I suppose this means that I probably shouldn't know that you like your tea well brewed with a splash of milk and four sugars then, should I?" Bond surmises cheerfully, shifting into a crouch over the bomb. The shrill beeping coming from it has every right to be the cause of Q's sweaty hands but it's not. He hastily wipes his palms on his lab coat. "Or that I know for a fact that you're a cat person because you come into work with ginger hairs around the back of your trousers when you think you've brushed them all off."

"007 - "

"You're rather fond of Hobnobs too, going by all the crumbs on your desk. You know what they say about tidy work spaces, Q."

"Yes, yes. Tidy desk, tidy mind. 007, I really - "

"Or that your favourite cardigan is that bottle green one with the tortoiseshell buttons? You only wear it for important meetings - or the days I'm due back at MI6 for a debriefing with you and M. Of course, I don't see you on any other day except for when I make a surprise visit to Q Branch but I have it on good authority that that cardigan has very rare outings indeed."

"Bond!" Q shouts, drawing the attention of every head in Q Branch. He ducks behind the cover of his monitor, dropping his voice to mutter furiously into his mic. He has to hold himself back from reminding Bond that these conversations are recorded for report purposes so he goes with the next best thing. "In case you've forgotten, you're sitting on an active bomb!"

"Oh, this old thing?"

"Yes, that trifle." Q says with exasperation. "Hmm."

"Hmm?"

"Hmm," Q repeats thoughtfully, gnawing on his bottom lip, a frown on his face as he stares at the monitor. "The device itself looks to be fairly rudimentary but I...can't...seem...to tell whether you should cut all the wires or just one of them."

"Fabulous." comes Bond's drawl in his ear, arching an eyebrow in the direction of the camera to hammer home his point. "I suppose I'll just shut my eyes and hope for the best then."

"Yes, do that. Just let me think..."

"Ten minutes left." Bond points out casually. "I must say, you're not instilling your usual confidence in me, Q."

"Hold tight, 007, it's not over yet. Do you have your torch on you?"

The torch - _his_ torch - is another ingenius little invention. Simply shine the light onto any electrical object and a scan of the schematics will be sent directly to the assigned smartphone. Very handy in getting agents out of scrapes if their communication with Q Division goes down. However - 

"Afraid I lost that some hours ago. You don't want to know how. Sorry about that, I know how attached you are to your toys."

"Of course."

Q rubs at his temples, trying to recall every scrap of information he knows about bomb assembly. He's seen all sorts in his short time at MI6, built and taken apart twice as many than he ought to just so he could avoid this exact sticky problem. All of that counts for nothing though, not with the device thousands of miles away with only a security camera and an inappropriately flirty 007 to help him out.

Bond has decided the best of his options is to rest. He's moved against the wall, bomb between his legs, elbows supported on his knees. Bond is staring up at the camera from beneath half lidded eyes as if he's trying to reach through it and beyond Q's monitor to see the bespectacled, pale face watching him back.

 _This camera doesn't do that face any justice_ , Q allows himself to think briefly. It blurs all the angles, dulls the intensity of the blue gaze, does a fine job of rendering James Bond as utterly harmless because that edge and charm and _danger_ that thrums in him doesn't translate as effectively over video as it does when he's standing directly in front of you, when you can practically taste rust from all the blood he's shed.

"Tell me something."

Q has taken to chewing his thumbnail ragged, every incessant beep driving him near frantic on the inside. Outwardly, he's as cool as he's ever been. He can almost hear the thoughts of the minions around him: _oh, there's Q again, probably mulling over plans for those ridiculous gadgets of his - what's next? An exploding pen?_

"What?"

"How did you come to be Quartermaster?"

"Bond, is this really the time for - "

"As someone who may likely go up in smoke at any given minute, humour me."

"That's a cheap way of getting me to talk, 007."

"A cheap _blow_ , would you say?"

"You are - " Q shakes his head in disbelief. "You're incorrigible."

"Humour me." is all Bond says.

Q shoves his glasses onto his forehead, scrubbing at his weary eyes. There's a headache building just behind them; it's the sharp, excruciating kind that no amount of painkiller can quell, the sort where all he can do is lie down in a dark room and pray for the sweet release of death until the pressure on his brain has passed. He has no time for this - _Bond_ has no time.

"Not much for me to say, really." Q begins. "I'd like to tell you that it was a long, hard slog up the ladder but if I'm being perfectly honest with you, I was just in the right place at the right time. The old Q - formerly known as R - decided retirement suited him far more than an early grave, so they were in the market for his replacement. I'd been caught hacking into the MI6 servers - "

"I beg your pardon?"

"Hush, I'm in the middle of a story." Q says distractedly, his mind for the most part fixated on a tangle of colourful wires. "I'd done such a thorough job of bypassing all their defences that they, ah, momentarily arrested me and brought me in for questioning. When they realised my intentions were admittedly immature but benevolent - I just wanted to see what _would_ happen if I did it - they decided it was far more useful having me on side rather than the alternative. After that, it wasn't long before they learnt of all my other skills and the job sort of...fell into my lap."

"Are you telling me that you became head of Q Division simply because you were caught doing something illegal?" Bond asks incredulously after a moment of quiet surprise.

"Well, I like to think it was a little more than that but more or less, yes. M - before Mallory took over - she vouched for me. Incredible woman."

Bond falls silent on his end of the line, which is approximately when Q realises his error. The loss of M had hit Bond especially hard, perhaps even more than he chose to let on. Q knows as much about Bond as the rest of MI6 - that is to say, they'd all read his file but kept it strictly on a need-to-know basis out of courtesy - so he remains elusive, a mystery, a _legend_. It's hard to get a hold on Bond outside of what he wants you to see. Yet Q knew enough to notice a darkness washing over the playful glean in those azure eyes until all Q could call to mind in those proceeding months was the immaculate bloodlust of a hunting shark.

Skyfall had been the final word on Bond and M's singular relationship, and Q very much wonders at the extent of Bond's resentment of that fact, or the pain that must come over him on recounting the memories of that night. Perhaps some misplaced guilt about the necessity of dragging M into the midst of the fight lest Silva pursue her for as long as either of them lived.

Q shuts his eyes and tips his head back onto the support of his chair, uttering words he'll be hard-pressed to say aloud again. He doubts even torture would pull them from his lips and he hopes Bond knows how much it costs him to say them now.

"I suffered a blow when Silva infiltrated our system." he confesses, his voice a murmur. He feels like a teenager sneaking phone calls on the landline to his boyfriend, head under the duvet covers and allowing the stifling darkness to eat up his secrets and keep them safe and sound. "It was a stupid mistake on my part. I was fooled by a simple case of misdirection, no less."

"No one blames you for what happened, Q."

Q can hear the hidden meaning buried within those words: _he_ didn't blame Q.

"I know that but it's rather hard to stop _me_ from blaming myself. After the Silva debacle, I was called to Mallory's office. He started saying all the expected things like _we can't let this happen again_ and _it's been quite a trial cleaning this up_ so I thought that was it for me. I was convinced I was going to be sacked - "

"Would've been a bloody great mistake on our part if we let you go." Bond cuts in with no small degree of feeling. "You're the best damn Quartermaster we've had."

"I wouldn't let any of my surviving predecessors hear you say that. We're a proud sort, us Quartermasters. Still, that's very kind of you, 007." Q's smile upon hearing Bond's interruption vanishes as quickly as it came on when he remembers that Bond's life is in danger. "I'd started on the whole bitterly humble speech. I was thanking him for the opportunity and that I considered it the highest honour to serve as Quartermaster before he thought to stop me. Said I'd misunderstood him and that the meeting was supposed to be a formal warning but really, it was only a slap on the wrist."

"Needless to say, after all of that I doubled down on security. Our servers are as safe as they can be but I find myself waking up and reaching for my laptop in the middle of the night, convinced that something has gone wrong. I feel the full weight of responsibility for allowing Silva to escape."

Q has decided to hell with the monitoring of this conversation. Besides, he can just delete all of this later on; he'll chalk it up to a technical difficulty, maybe even claim interference if questions arise.

Movement on the screen draws Q's focus. Bond is shifting on the floor. "I assume you're sitting at your desk and quietly working yourself into a frenzy over our current little problem?" when Q confirms Bond's suspicions, he sits up a little straighter, stretching one leg out and taking care not to knock the bomb. "Right. Look at me, Q. Get me up on that computer of yours, as big as you like."

Q feels a little embarrassed to expand the security camera feed so that it takes up his whole monitor but he follows Bond's instructions without question.

"Read my lips: I'm just as responsible as you think you are. I brought Silva in. If anyone should have trouble sleeping at night, it's me and not you. Or, perhaps we can go one further? Perhaps we'll lay the blame on Silva and not ourselves."

"You do an excellent job of assuaging guilt in oneself, 007."

"I have to - otherwise, how could I possibly live with myself?" Bond murmurs.

"Bond - "

"So where are we with these bloody wires, then?" The sharpness in Bond's voice makes it quite plain that he isn't prepared to go any further.

Q sighs, "I just don't know." It near kills Q to confess that. He's making a mental note to gather all the Double Oh's and give them a crash course on defusing bombs as soon as possible. "You should get out of there."

"There'll be casualties. Would you want that on your conscience?"

"I don't know what else to suggest," Q huffs. "By all means, if you can find a large body of water nearby, you can try chucking it into that!"

"A novel approach." Bond says, and it's infuriating that Q can hear the smile in his voice without even having to look at him. "Very Batman of you, Q."

Q rolls his eyes and in spite of his better judgement mumbles, "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."

"How about a wager?"

"Bond, you have two minutes left on the clock."

"All the more reason for you to take me up on it while you have the chance."

"This is absolutely ridiculous. I'm giving you a direct order to get out of there _now_!"

Bond does what he knows best. He ignores Q.

"If you were to guess, would you cut all of the wires or just one?"

"I told you! I don't know!"

"Hmm, I quite fancy this green one here. I've always been fond of green."

Q flushes. He can feel his face turning beet red, his mind jumping to his favourite cardigan tucked away in the back of his wardrobe, waiting for Bond's return. He tells himself to pull it together.

"Fine - fine. All of them." Q hisses, grabbing the edges of his screen as if he can jostle Bond from afar. "I'd cut all of them."

"How about this, then." Bond says, pulling the bomb right onto his lap. There's a soft swish as a knife materialises in his hand. "If snipping the green wire stops the bomb from going off, I want something from you."

"Well, you better hurry it along because you've already near depleted my reserve of patience for you. Let me guess? Something shiny that the other Double Oh's can't have?" Q is becoming antsy, he knows that he is. Betting against Q is never in anybody's favour and he'd rather 007 not tempt fate now.

"Something like that." Bond's chuckle is soft, barely the suggestion of a laugh. "You have to finally agree to let me take you out - and I mean it, a proper date. Dinner, dancing, drinks."

It's as easy as pulling a trigger for Bond to be this sure of himself. Q's eyes are threatening to pop out of his skull and he's glad to be concealed behind his computer screen for how flabbergasted he must look. Bond has a little more than a minute left; Q has a sneaking suspicion that he left this so late to try and back Q into a corner because everything 007 does has purpose.

 _Conniving, intuitive git_ is what Q wants to say but instead, he breathes, "You can't be serious."

"And if I'm wrong - well, let's just say you'll be cheated out of a very fine evening but you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you were most likely correct."

"Bloody hell."

"What say you, Q? Are you feeling bold?"

"I can't possibly condone this, 007. M will have my head if I let you take a gamble on your life for the sake of landing a date!"

"Accept or decline."

"Alright! Fine! You can have your date if you get out of there alive, regardless of snipping wires. Just get out of there!"

Bond doesn't drop the bomb and bolt it like Q was hoping for; instead, he grips the knife and slips it beneath the green wire. Q can't remember how to breathe, he's frozen in his seat. 007, alarmingly confident, winks at Q just before he slices upwards and then - 

Nothing.

The beeping stops. Bond is still intact. The building hasn't turned to rubble.

The only sign of relief that Bond shows is a low exhale before he says, "Still with me, Q?"

"You cocky bastard." Q finally manages to choke out. His calmness - something he prides himself on, the ability to keep a cool head even if an agent is starting to lose theirs - is in tatters. It takes more effort than he's accustomed to employing to keep from unleashing a string of profanities down the line. "Just for that, I'm going to send you out on your next mission with nothing but a wristwatch for company. It might help you break that nasty habit of _cutting things too close_."

"You're going to personally find out just how lethal I can be without a gun in my hand and only my charms to arm me, Q."

Ah, yes. The promised date. Q's stomach performs an impressive somersault. "I don't doubt it."

"This has been fun, we should do it again sometime. I'll pick you up at seven thirty this Saturday. Do wear something nice." Bond says breezily, his attention rapidly fading from their conversation. He goes stock still, like a bloodhound picking up a scent, and turns to some noise too quiet for Q's ears further along the corridor. "Ta-ta, Q."

"Happy hunting, Bond." Q replies, trying to be the consummate professional. The adrenaline in his blood is beginning to melt away but his hands are still shaking like he's been left out in the cold. "This is Q, signing off. Handing over now."

The moment he directs Bond back to Jessica, every muscle in his body turns to liquid. He sags in his chair, utterly drained, the headache hitting him at full tilt - and it's not because he had found himself completely at a loss with the bomb. 

Bond had seen right through him - of course had. Q could laugh for thinking he'd gotten away with concealing his regard towards the agent, for thinking he could _outmanoeuvre_ a Double Oh who encounters more appreciative glances than fine suits, who is trained in the art of seduction, of perceiving and drawing out weaknesses. Bond had seen it all and then pinned Q down in his own arena, forced both hands behind his back to get him to all but concede.

"Somebody get me a fresh cup of tea, if it's not too much trouble!" Q barks, pushing down the dizziness and nausea his migraine has brought on. He's worked in worse condition countless times before and it's certainly not going to stop him now.

He needs to get a start on that wristwatch, if only to see the fleeting impression of surprise on Bond's slack face before it gives way to his specific brand of quiet mirth when Q presents it to him, gift-wrapped and all, this coming Saturday.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never ventured outside of the Harry Potter fandom before so this is TERRIFYING but I got into 00Q in a very big way. Please be kind. Also, who is letting me write all these oneshots when I still need to update my full length HP fic?!
> 
> The song I used for the title and also what I listened to writing this: [Maybe by Emma Bunton](https://open.spotify.com/track/4uqFP54CYhg0R84kWgNhSl) (yes, really! I think, in a really bizarre way, it quite suits James Bond? At the _very least_ vintage Bond!)


End file.
